This week’s showdown between Reps. John Dingell and Henry A. Waxman could come down to the votes of members too young to remember Dingell’s glory days — votes Waxman has been courting with a series of well-timed campaign contributions.

Dingell outraised Waxman by a sizable margin over the past two years, and he’s been more generous with his money, giving nearly five times what Waxman gave to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Dingell has also given substantially more than Waxman to the Frontline program for Democrats in the most competitive districts.

But Waxman, whose district includes Beverly Hills and other wealthy Los Angeles suburbs, has been extraordinarily deliberate in his campaign giving, spending liberally on the party’s best pickup possibilities just before Election Day — and hence, just before the time when members will vote on whether Waxman replaces Dingell as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

In October alone, Waxman cut $2,000 checks to 19 Democratic candidates. Some fell short. Most won. Among the winners: Kathy Dahlkemper in Pennsylvania, Steve Driehaus in Ohio and Larry Kissell in North Carolina, each of whom knocked off an incumbent Republican to add a seat to the Democratic Caucus, and Gerry Connolly, who won the seat Rep. Tom Davis is vacating in Virginia.

Connolly wasn’t around when a pack of Old Bulls like Dingell roamed the House, and he said it’s a little daunting to have to choose between the 82-year-old chairman and his 69-year-old challenger even before he’s been sworn in as a member of Congress.

Connolly has received a call from Waxman and a letter from Dingell, but — like most of his colleagues — he won’t say how he’s leaning.

Dan Maffei, a former Ways and Means aide just elected as a congressman from New York, said he hasn’t made up his mind yet but added — wisely — “I won’t tell you when I do.”

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Dingell, who now uses a cane, is a holdover from the era when chairmen ruled Congress with an iron fist. He has rallied support from conservative Blue Dogs and influential members of the Congressional Black Caucus eager to uphold the seniority system that has controlled power in the Democratic Caucus for more than a century.

Waxman, still a wily, energetic reformer, has a natural base among liberals — which may explain why he felt the need to reach out financially to new members, many of whom are more moderate even if they ran for Congress under a post-Watergate mantle of good-government reform.

Not surprisingly, these two very different men are running two very different campaigns.

Dingell’s supporters are making a public push for votes, releasing letters, holding conference calls and issuing background documents to tout his bona fides as a productive chairman — and, more recently, as an environmentalist.

As much as anything, Dingell’s supporters may be hoping that fear carries the day. The theory: Dingell — nicknamed The Truck — is not someone to cross. A day after Waxman signaled his intent, even Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri — who, as a Republican, does not have a vote in the matter — joked that he’s backing Dingell for fear of angering his cantankerous chairman.

Dingell’s supporters insist that his approach is working. “It’s clear to us that we’re locking things down,” said South Dakota Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, a Dingell ally. Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Doyle predicted his friend, the chairman, would “prevail by a comfortable margin.”

Waxman, by contrast, is running a quiet campaign, chalking up what his backers say are silent commitments from colleagues without forcing any of them to go public with their support. This is particularly helpful for the junior members afraid of angering Dingell, aides said.

Waxman has used this playbook before: In 1978, he persuaded colleagues to ignore the seniority system and elect him chairman of the Commerce Committee’s Health and Environment subcommittee in only his third term. In the run-up to that vote, Waxman lavished campaign cash on his colleagues on the committee to upset a popular Democrat with more seniority.

While the campaign strategies of the two men may determine the winner of Wednesday’s winner-take-all vote, a well-chronicled history of policy disputes could play a role, too.

Dingell remains the auto industry’s top ally in Washington — his wife, Debbie, works for General Motors and is descended from company founders. Waxman, an ardent environmentalist, stymied an effort by Dingell and then-President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s to revamp the Clean Air Act.

But the two men have worked together on environmental legislation in the years since — including a sweeping rewrite of the Clean Air Act in 1990 — and they’ve pressed the White House to release the names of the members of Vice President Dick Cheney’s much-maligned energy task force.

Dingell has moved left on climate change after fighting for years to block any legislation that sought to reduce carbon emissions. But Waxman has been far more aggressive, sending the speaker a letter last month calling for more rigorous caps on greenhouse gases. He waged his campaign, in part, to play a role on the energy overhaul President-elect Barack Obama has promised to make. (Obama recently named Phil Schiliro, a longtime Waxman aide, as his top liaison to Congress.)

Dingell has made national health care a priority throughout his career. Every two years, he kicks off a new Congress by introducing legislation — first offered by his father in 1943 — that would create a national health care system.

Waxman’s challenge took the Old Bull by surprise, but not even a recent knee surgery could keep him from making calls to protect a post he has held — both in the majority and the minority — since 1981.